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Big Coffin Hunter posted:but you listed osw OSW's older stuff holds up pretty well. I just rewatched their ECW series and it was a blast. It seems like the Pre-NWO Hogan Arc they did for WCW might be the last good thing they do though, everything else for the last several years has been mediocre at best, and this TNA series was pretty trash.
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Dec 22, 2017 03:59
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Smoking Crow posted:What do you think made them worse I think a combination of comfort, reliance on gimmicks and either an excess or lack of interest. Any time they review a current PPV it becomes more and more clear how little they care about WWE's current content, and that they're doing those episodes just out of audience expectation to generate views, the lack of passion in those reviews stands out. Outside of those reviews they only seem interested in reviewing stuff that they are personally invested in (lovely movies, video games, TNA) and those reviews have become more and more about having a laugh with each other, sharing in-jokes, goofing off, and getting their running gags in because they are expected, rather than bringing the stuff that made them a success. OSW reviews (and those that imitated them like NewGen Project and AE Podcast) got where they are by not just riffing wrestling pay per views, but by also providing a viewer with worthwhile historical context, angle summaries, character and story analysis, useful tidbits from both inside and outside the fictional universe that influenced events, and generally helping to make the sometimes incoherent world of pro wrestling make sense as long-form storytelling. The slick presentation was also a factor, although I think that presentation has almost become a gimmick itself at this point. The WCW Hogan Storyline reviews felt like a return to form because they were once again focused on all those things, but those seem to have become the exceptions rather than the rule based on the TNA reviews. I was actually really looking forward to those TNA reviews because I wanted that old OSW insight into what was going on in that brand, but it felt like I was watching Episode 4 of a review series rather than Episode 1. They made no concessions for the uninitiated, barely recapped storylines or characters, and basically spent the whole time chatting with each other in a nostalgia haze rather than informing their audience. Which makes sense given that they are long-time TNA fans and this was the period they all watched as young students. But being in that comfort zone rather than addressing something they had to put some effort into clearly hurt their work. Also the off-color jokes have increased over the years to the point of getting kind of eye-rolling and making it harder for me to enjoy them, but that's a personal taste thing. Like, it's nice that they recognize the offensiveness of Billy Gunn's misogynistic character in TNA and are mildly disgusted with the crowd for popping for his misogyny like he was a face, but then they spend like 10 minutes turning the Gail Kim match into a protracted "camel toe," gag. I don't necessarily blame them, but its too much for me.
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Dec 23, 2017 05:01
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MassRafTer posted:That IWGP champion couldn't even sell half as many tickets to the Cow Palace. I would think things like the price differential and chicago vs san fran as wrestling cities would be larger factors in that equation than Cody vs Okada's drawing power in the US. That being said, I don't want to take anything away from All In's promotion, which has been brilliant. I was barely even aware of the existence of the G1 Special, where as All In has been getting consistent buzz all through the last few months despite MANIA being on everyone radar at the same time. Cody's drawing power probably doesn't equal 10k seats, but brilliant marketing sure does.
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May 14, 2018 10:03
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ICHIBAHN posted:Which he is doing... I didn't say he wasn't. The conversation was about drawing ability as a wrestler/star. Or at least that's what I inferred.
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May 14, 2018 10:31
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Did anyone ever make an OSW/AEP/NewGenProject style podcast to cover the 00's era? I found a Ruthless Aggression Era Podcast when I googled it and it has more than ten episodes, but the audio is so garbage it's completely unlistenable, and also it starts at Vengeance '02 of all places, I guess because it's the first PPV after Vince's actual Ruthless Aggression promo, but it's still a weird and offputting starting point.
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Mar 25, 2019 07:06
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The_Rob posted:There was definitely a decent idea somewhere in the funhouse match and there were some funny things going on, but man it went on way too long, it had nothing to say and had no payoff. Ok, I can accept that it was too long and you didn't like the ending, but nothing to say? The deconstruction of John Cena as a character could not have been more complete. For god's sake the climax of the match was original Bray recreating the "hit me with a chair," spot from Mania 30, and Cena did a montage flashback of Famous Cena Sucks moments before taking the swing instead of throwing the chair away like he did originally, leading to an emotional break as he realized that Bray was right that deep down he's a bad person and a bully, which allowed Bray to pin him with his finisher. How much louder did it need to scream what it was trying to say?
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Apr 6, 2020 07:07
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MassRafTer posted:Did they hire Max Landis to agent this garbage? New Japan does the same type of character-driven continuity-based storytelling in their big matches, and AEW has done it several times so far as well: Cody v Dustin, Kenny v Moxley, Bucks v Kenny/Hangman...
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Apr 6, 2020 07:58
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Rick posted:Oh I absolutely do. If Wyatt is going to compare Hogan to Cena he's basically saying that King Kong Bundy should've had a psychic break and that Hogan was a bully for not putting him over. Bray Wyatt only was having a major Wrestlemania match because he was built up to be an opponent for Cena to beat specifically at Wrestrlemania. That's it. They weren't trying to make a star, they didn't think he had potential, they just wanted him to be a Hero Face foil. Except Hogan fought Bundy two years into his main event push, not the last year before the definitive end of his time as top Main Event face, so replace him in this Analogy with Yokozuna and see if your logic still holds up.
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Apr 6, 2020 22:11
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Gaz-L posted:It's more like saying that Hogan maybe shouldn't have beaten Yoko for the title, which I'm not sure is a controversial opinion. By the time John was feuding with Bray, Cena was very much a made guy and losing wouldn't have hurt. Or hell, not even losing, because the point of that segment was that HE SHOULD HAVE SWUNG WITH THE CHAIR, because at that point, even if Cena wins the match, Bray gets over because he got in Cena's head and made him abandon his values for a moment. That even helps CENA because a hero who can falter but find redemption is more interesting than WWE's bizarre logic that faces are idiots with no friends but also can't ever do anything bad or complain about losing their title/match. There was a big emotional Catharsis at the end of the Bray match where Cena goes into the crowd and hugs a little boy in Cena gear. How much nicer would that have been if the child was comforting his hero after a devastating defeat? What a great way to get back your face heat and sympathy after failing to stop one of the newest and most momentum-backed heels in the company at the exact moment when there was a changing of the main event guard via Daniel Bryan and The Shield? Cena should have either swung the chair and won but been ashamed of himself and walked away while Bray got helped up and led the crowd in chants or whatever to sell that he won by getting Cena to betray his morals and thus get his heat back, or Cena should have refused to swing the chair, thus lost the match, and then been comforted by the kid in the front row. Either way would have worked and set up a redemption story for John over the rest of the feud while still making Bray for years with that one big victory.
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Apr 6, 2020 22:29
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Rick posted:John Cena didn't come out after Bray Wyatt had beat Daniel Bryan in the ring, but there isn't really a huge difference in the roles of King Kong Bundy and Yokozuna. Yokozuna was a dude who was given a ton of momentum so he would be a credible threat to Bret Hart, and then to Hogan once Vince changed his mine about Bret. Which by the way losing to Hogan didn't hurt him at all because he would be seen as unbeatable like roughly 3 months later when he was the obstacle that Luger was supposed to overcome. Bray being the rumored opponent for Cena was like a six month long plan, he had momentum specifically for Cena to stop. Yoko having momentum for Bret to stop was a good thing because he was the first real threat to Bret after becoming champion. Yoko being fed to Hogan was idiotic and cut the knees out from under Bret as company face. The fact that Yoko's defeat at Hogan's hands didn't destroy his credibility probably has a lot to do with the fact that Hogan didn't spend the next several months clowning on him several more times like Cena did to Bray, but thats a larger conversation and would require a more in-depth analysis of the differences between the situations. The point is that Hogan beating Yoko was a really dumb idea, not even taking into account that Hogan would be gone within 6 months, because Hogan was not the company's future. They gave him their hottest new heel instead of using that heel to make a new Top Star. Bray being built up specifically to feed to Cena was not a good idea. There was a massive changing of the guard happening at that moment in history. The Shield was about to reach true Main Event status, and Daniel Bryan was finally going to be crowned champion, and CM Punk had left the company. Bray should have been put over by the old guard so he would be ready to feud with the new stars, which is exactly what WWE tried to do with Yoko AFTER Mania 9, having Hogan job for him to set up Luger (even though they refused to pull that trigger). Vince KNEW at Mania 30 that Cena's time was almost up and he was ready to have the torched passed to Reigns. The plan was always to have Cena fail to beat Lesnar, even before they put him into the Death of Cena match. So what value was there in feeding the company's hottest new heel to the OLD guy when you already have a NEW guy picked out?
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Apr 7, 2020 00:24
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Why does AEW keep signing all this former WWE talent god damnit! They should be pushing their own stars that have never been mainstays in another major company, like Kenny Omega!
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Sep 10, 2020 09:26
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Can you believe they haven't rehired Eric Rowan for this primo wine-making lore?
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Feb 21, 2021 09:53
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remusclaw posted:I mean poo poo, who else deserved it this year? I figured Gedo would lose out after nobody liked Evil's title run.
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Feb 25, 2021 22:51
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I'm the only person who is irrationally angry that Meltzer is upset that AEW is planning to kayfabe the failed explosion rather than doing an on-screen out-of-character mae culpa? Just because Heyman did it doesn't mean its the "right," thing to do, and I don't think WWE has ever once apologizes for a major botch, a false advertisement or any other lovely thing they've done and when that happens he always just shrugs and is like "Well that's Vince, and it doesn't matter anyway because [business speak]..."
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Mar 8, 2021 19:14
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That's fair. I guess it just makes me mad because I very clearly remember him and Alvarez having a discussion about WWE reaching a level of false advertising that it would be funny if it wasn't so offensive a couple years back, with things like advertising Taker, Stone Cold and Sting for the first Fox Smackdown and delivering none of them and putting on PPVs with 2 or fewer announced matches, and Dave just shrugging his shoulders over it because their audience is clearly willing to just take it and they don't need to care about the audience anyway because of how their revenue works. I don't want to toot the dumb fanboy warhorn or claim bias or whatever, but it does strike me as an annoying double standard even if you can understand the logic of WHY its a double standard.
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Mar 8, 2021 19:26
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Low Desert Punk posted:i've heard very few Lance takes on AEW that I didn't agree with. He's sort of old-school minded but in the "i want my wrestling to make sense and be logically consistent" sense instead of whatever diarrhea people like Corny and Al Snow let out of their mouths. And his criticism is really constructive, he doesn't just say he doesn't like something, he explains why in detail and also talks about things he thinks they do well Lance's mindset on wanting his wrestling to be logically consistent is trapped in dinosaur times though. Who had all the buzz coming out of that match? Was it Thunder Rosa? Is Thunder Rosa who AEW fans were talking about? Is it Thunder Rosa who obviously got the bigger rub from the match? No, it was Britt Baker, any idiot could see that after spending ten minutes looking at reactions. AEW the company putting their energy and tv time and money behind the person who got the bigger response from the audience after the match is ENTIRELY logically consistent. The argument that it makes wins and losses not matter is nonsense. Does UFC put big money and content behind every person who wins a match, or even wins a championship? Has any fight promotion ever worked that way? Of course not, and Lance KNOWS that. He thinks that good wrestling booking means that the show's storylines exist in completely vacuum-sealed bottle and that is NOT good wrestling booking. Alvarez was 100% right to bring up Hell In The Cell. Who remembers what the Undertaker did the night after the cell match? Nobody. How did the fans react to Foley coming back the next night and doing nothing important after a star-making performance that primed millions of people for a babyface turn? Negatively. Which is why a couple weeks later came the only thing anyone remembers about the fallout of Hell In The Cell, the Foley Interviews that launched his face turn. Is Lance really going to sit there and tell me that was better booking? To have Foley do nothing because he lost and have nobody care about what the guy who won did, just because it "makes sense," that the winner do a thing and the loser not because THAT is what makes wins and losses matter? Get the gently caress out of here. The good booking was when the company capitalized on what the fans came out of the match wanting to see, and the fact that they WAITED in favor of "logic," was the bad booking.
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Mar 28, 2021 21:50
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